Moral Psychology and Cultivating the Self

Edinburgh Research Explorer Moral psychology and cultivating the self Citation for published version: Virag, C 2019, Moral psychology and cultivating the self. in PJ Ivanhoe (ed.), Zhu Xi: Selected Writings. Oxford Chinese Thought, Oxford University Press, pp. 35-55. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190861254.003.0003 Digital Object Identifier (DOI): 10.1093/oso/9780190861254.003.0003 Link: Link to publication record in Edinburgh Research Explorer Document Version: Peer reviewed version Published In: Zhu Xi Publisher Rights Statement: This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of a chapter published following peer review. The version of record: Virag, C., 2019, "Moral Psychology and Cultivating the Self", in P. J. Ivanhoe (ed), Zhu Xi: Selected Writings, Oxford University Press, DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190861254.001.0001, is available online at: https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190861254.001.0001/oso-9780190861254-chapter-3 General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Edinburgh Research Explorer is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The University of Edinburgh has made every reasonable effort to ensure that Edinburgh Research Explorer content complies with UK legislation. If you believe that the public display of this file breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 Chapter 2 Moral Psychology and Cultivating the Self Curie Virág Introduction The revival of the early Confucian ethical tradition by Zhu Xi and his neo-Confucian predecessors was a movement to reinstate moral self-realization as the proper goal of human life.1 Zhu sought to restore what he regarded as the true Way of antiquity, in which the most important of human aspirations was to fulfill one’s potential to grasp and embody the normative patterns of the cosmos, and to actualize them in one’s conduct. Like the ancients before him, Zhu was conscious of living in an era of moral decline—an era whose downward trajectory was to be traced back to the very founding of empire, when scholars stopped concerning themselves with right understanding and right living, and instead devoted themselves to scholastic exegesis and to the mastery of textual content. Zhu’s ethical project was to promote what he regarded as the true and proper way to live, which was to fulfill the potentiality that human beings shared with the creative forces of Heaven and earth. Such personal fulfillment necessarily involved engaging in activity that contributed to the betterment of society, and to the flourishing of all under Heaven. 1 This chapter was completed with generous support from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement no. 726371). For a fuller discussion of self-cultivation in the ethics of Zhu Xi and in neo- Confucianism more generally, see “Self-cultivation as Praxis in Song Neo-Confucianism,” in Virág 2014. Although Zhu Xi’s ethical vision and program were, at some basic level, a continuation of the early Confucian concern with moral self-perfection, there was much that was new. For one thing, Zhu provided an account of cosmic and human phenomena that was far more elaborate than anything articulated by the early Confucians. It explained the diverse profusion of things in the world in terms of the dynamic engagement of pattern-principle (li 理) and qi 氣, and offered a coherent and systematic picture of the order and workings of the cosmos. It also contained a more nuanced account of the psychological workings of the human being that explained how the nature (xing 性), the heart-mind (xin心), and the feelings (qing 情) were integrated with one another. Zhu also gave a more conceptually developed, naturalistic explanation of human moral capacity and self-cultivation. With these theoretical endeavors, Zhu achieved more than a “synthesis” of the various cosmological and ethical ideas forwarded by his Northern Song neo-Confucian predecessors: he was also enacting the very human potential to embody and experience the patterned workings of the cosmos itself. It was by conceptualizing and embodying the all-pervading pattern-principle of things in the world that one achieved integrity and unity in one’s own person, thereby fully realizing one’s humanity. Zhu’s theoretical and practical projects were thus interdependent, and assumed significance and meaning in relation to each other. On the theoretical side, intellection was at the forefront of self-cultivation practice—a fact that is evident in how Zhu Xi explains the enterprise of learning and reading books. For Zhu, arriving at a coherent and meaningful understanding of the text was crucial to learning and to personal realization: it was through the process of apprehending the pattern-principle of the text that one could realize the normative condition of one’s self. Not insignificantly, the heart-mind, as Zhu Xi repeatedly pointed out, was a faculty whose characteristic activity was to unite and organize the entire person. At the same time, the achievement of an integrated life through self-cultivation proceeded not only from the conceptual apprehension of intelligible wholes but also through the experiential dimensions of self-cultivation practice, and through an emphasis on sensory and affective engagement.2 In view of the complex engagement of conceptual and practical dimensions in Zhu Xi’s approach to self-cultivation, the passages presented in this chapter cover wide-ranging topics and genres, including essays, commentaries on the classics, and records of conversations with students. They include discussions of the basic categories of traditional moral psychology (such as the nature, the heart-mind, the feelings and desires), in which Zhu responded to his students’ requests to clarify, develop, and justify his conceptions. They also cover Zhu’s approach to learning (xue 學). Conceived as a matter of exhaustively investigating pattern-principle (qiong li 窮理), learning was not a matter of apprehending what was external to one’s person, but about achieving a resonance between oneself and the object of one’s investigations. This entailed such practices as maintaining tranquility (jing 靜 ), being in a state of reverential attention (jing 敬), and sitting in meditation (jing zuo 靜坐). It also involved training oneself to keep one’s heart-mind open (xuxin 虛心) and to preserve the heart-mind (zunxin 存心)—exercises that enabled one to achieve a proper state of heightened engagement with oneself, with one’s surroundings, and with the objects of one’s attention. Such efforts, Zhu emphasized, were not about physically escaping from the world and finding solace in the absence of affairs, but were meant to enable the individual to 2 On the conception and significance of emotions in Zhu Xi’s ethical theory, see Virág 2007. achieve mastery in the face of things and events, and to respond calmly and appropriately to them. Zhu’s approach to self-cultivation as an endeavor to achieve a coherent cognitive grasp of the true nature of things, and a deep, affective engagement with the objects of one’s concern, is perhaps best exemplified in his method of reading (dushufa 讀書法).3 Zhu’s account of proper reading places primary emphasis on having the right attitude and commitment to the enterprise. It also stresses the importance of arousing and animating the senses and of bringing the body in alignment with the activity of reading. In order for the text to become fully “one’s own” and not merely an entity external to one’s self, one must engage with it physically, as it were—be it through recitation, which allowed one’s body to perform the words, or through imaginatively “entering” the text. In such ways, one dissolved the boundary between oneself and the text, and awakened the normative pattern-principles that one shared with the rest of the cosmos. Translation 1. It was asked, “Is it the case that first there was pattern-principle, and then afterwards there was qi?” Zhu Xi replied, “Pattern-principle and qi cannot, fundamentally, be spoken of in terms of before and after. But when we proceed to make inferences [about things],4 then it would seem that first there is pattern-principle and then afterwards there is qi. 3 Editor’s note: See Chapter 4, “Poetry, Literature, Textual Study, and Hermeneutics,” in this volume for more on Zhu Xi’s views on reading and literature. 4 On the significance of inference in Zhu Xi’s thought, see Meng 2016, 278–279. He was asked about the Dao itself and its operation (yong 用).”5 Zhu Xi replied, “If we imagine the ears as the thing itself, then hearing is its operation; if we consider the eyes as the thing itself, then seeing is its operation.” (ZZYL, Chapter 1, p. 3) 2. It was asked, “The natures of humans and things have a single source, so why are there differences among them?” Zhu Xi replied, “With respect to the nature of humans, we speak of brightness and dimness; with respect to the nature of things, there is just unevenness and blockage. What is dim can be made bright but what is already uneven and blocked cannot be made clear and penetrating. In the words of Hengqu 橫渠 (Zhang Zai 張載, 1020–1077),6 ‘Among things there is none that does not possess this nature, but it is on account of their penetrability and dimness, openness and blockage, that we can distinguish between humans and things.’ And in the 5 I occasionally translate yong 用 as “operation” rather than as “function,” the standard rendering followed in this volume, since Zhu seems to be referring to something like the broader practical unfolding of something, rather than its specific and predetermined function.

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